Sen. McCarthy reads a 1954 newspaper headline that compared him with Hitler.

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and their sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. The result of McCarthy’s tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22.